In an industrial garment factory fabric from which the garments are to be made is laid in superposed layers on a long cutting table where the multiple layers are simultaneously cut to provide fabric parts which are thereafter assembled to form garments. The fabric is spread out on the cutting table by a fabric laying machine comprising a carriage which spans the cutting table and travels on rails at opposite sides of the table. The carriage carries a roll of fabric which is unwound as the carriage moves along the table to spread the fabric on the table. The movements of the carriage are controlled by an operator who rides on a platform rigidly attached to the carriage and controls the carriage by means of a control panel mounted on the carriage. The upper portion of the carriage has bearing means for rotatably supporting a roll of fabric to be cut in such manner that the fabric is spread over the table as the carriage moves along the rails. The table proper may be composed of a series of endless belts which permit bringing the superposed layers of fabric to the cutting shop. The length of fabric previously brought from a storage room are wound on tubular supports which are generally made of cardboard.
Different devices have been proposed for supplying lengths of fabric to the fabric laying machine. Some such devices use an overhead conveyor for carrying the pieces of fabric on beams while others entail the mounting of the fabric on unwinding supports and the placing of the lengths of fabric thus prepared on a pallet truck which is brought from the storage room to the cutting room by a pallet truck or other suitable handling device.
The known devices have a certain number of drawbacks. The lengths of fabric are customarily delivered by the weaving factory wound on a cardboard tube. In order to unwind the fabric it is necessary to reinforce the cardboard core either by a metal shaft provided at one end with a gear cone or to rewind the fabric on a rigid beam. In the former case the placing of a length of fabric on the unwinding carriage is made more difficult by the weight of the fabric-shaft combination while in the latter case, the storing of the lengths of fabric before use and after the rolls are partially used is made more difficult either by the size or by the weight of the shaft which must be sufficiently rigid to support the fabric on the unwinding pedestals of the carriage. Furthermore the need of having as many shafts as lengths of fabric in operation and in storage represents a substantial investment.
If lengths of fabric are supplied to the fabric laying machine by an overhead conveyor it is necessary to provide sufficient height for such device as well as large free spaces for the passage of the suspended fabric rolls from the storage room to the fabric laying machine. When the fabric is supplied by pallet trucks a sufficient number of these trucks must be prepared in advance depending on each work program. In either case no provision is made for taking up and storing partially used lengths of fabric nor for placing the fabric on a rigid beam.
The problem to be solved thus consists of:
1. Finding a rigid, lightweight fabric support of sufficiently low cost so that it can be supplied directly with the fabric by the weaving mill;
2. Providing a device for supplying the cutting room with rolls of fabric which is continuous from the storage room to the unwinding carriage;
3. Eliminating the manual loading and unloading of lengths of fabric.